On that very day the Czar summoned the Kings of Bulgaria and Servia
to submit their disputes to his decision. While this demand was
based on a specific provision of the Servo-Bulgarian treaty, His
Majesty also urged it on the ground of devotion to the Slav cause.
This pro-Slav argument provoked much criticism in Austro-Hungarian
circles which resented bitterly the assumption of Slav hegemony in
Balkan affairs. However, on June 12 Bulgaria and Servia accepted
Russian arbitration. But the terms were not agreed upon. While Mr.
Venizelos and Mr. Pashitch impatiently awaited the summons to St.
Petersburg they could get no definite information of the intentions
of the Bulgarian government. And the rivalry of Austria-Hungary and
Russia for predominance in the Balkans was never more intense than
at this critical moment.
On June 14 Dr. Daneff was appointed prime minister in succession to
Mr. Gueshoff. He had represented Bulgaria in the London Peace
Conference where his aggressive and uncompromising attitude had
perturbed his fellow delegates from the other Balkan states and
provoked some criticism in the European press. He was known as a
Russophil. And he seems now to have got assurance from Russia that
she would maintain the Bulgarian view of the treaty with Servia,
although she had at one time favored the Servian demand for an
extensive revision of it. Certainly Dr. Daneff voiced the views and
sentiments of the Bulgarian army and nation. I was in Sofia the week
before the outbreak of the war between the Allies. And the two
points on which everybody insisted were, first, that Servia must be
compelled to observe the Treaty of Partition, and, secondly, that
Central Macedonia must be annexed to Bulgaria. For these things all
Bulgarians were ready to fight. And flushed with their great
victories over the main army of Turkey they believed it would be an
easy task to overpower the forces of Servia and Greece. For the
Greeks they entertained a sort of contempt; and as for the Servians,
had they not already defeated them completely at Slivnitza in 1886?
Men high in the military service of the nation assured me that the
Bulgarian army would be in Belgrade in eight days after war was
declared. The Greeks too would quickly be driven out of Saloniki.
The idea of a conference to decide the territorial question in
dispute between the Allies found no favor in any quarter.
Now it is important that full justice should be done to Bulgaria. As
against Servia, if Servia had stood alone, she might have appealed
to the sanctity and inviolability of treaties. Circumstances had
indeed changed since the treaty was negotiated. But was that a good
reason, Bulgaria might have asked, why she should be excluded from
Central Macedonia which the treaty guaranteed to her? Was that a
good reason why she should not emancipate her Macedonian brethren
for whose sake she had waged a bloody and costly war with Turkey?
The Bulgarians saw nothing in the problem but their treaty with
Servia and apparently cared for no territorial compensation without
Central Macedonia.